There’s a lot of discussion in the business world right now about chief data officers (CDOs). It’s centered primarily around two questions: When should a business hire a CDO? And, What should this person do? No organization should seriously consider hiring a new C-level executive without fully understanding the strategic purpose of that role.

For decades, sales teams and marketing teams have been at loggerheads over the most divisive of items. Sales constantly says that “marketing don’t produce high quality leads for us to close,” and marketing exclaim that “the sales team couldn’t close a barn door.” The current wave started when Gartner predicted that the CMO will spend more money on IT than the CIO by 2017. Of course, not everyone shares that view.

Open source software companies must move to the cloud and add proprietary code to their products to succeed. The current business model is recipe for failure. That's the conclusion of Peter Levine, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm that backed Facebook, Skype, Twitter and Box as startups. Levine says the conventional open source business model is flawed: Open source companies that charge for maintenance, support, warranties and indemnities for an application or operating system that is available for free simply can't generate enough revenue.

Say goodbye to the calcified, creaky business systems and processes that we’ve come to know and love. They’re being swept away by clouds and mobile systems at an alarming rate. But that’s a positive thing, of course. With this transformation, however, comes a need for deeper knowledge and understanding of the new systems and processes that are driving new businesses, how they interact, and what they are capable of delivering.

Do you remember the Real Madrid team of the early 2000s? “Los Galacticos” was made up of superstar players from around the world, such as Zidane, Beckham and Ronaldo, with no expense spared. But as a winning strategy, it backfired. Lots of star players don’t necessarily make a great team. For some CIOs, that’s not so very different from the situation they face as cloud services flow into the organisation through the back door.

It turns out that many skilled data analysts are essentially janitors. A new study released by Xplenty, a big data integration platform, finds that a third of data analysts spend the majority of their time (50 percent to 90 percent) "just cleaning raw data. " That's right – performing mere mopping-up duties. The study is based on feedback from more than 200 data analysts. With a growing number of organizations desperate to realize value from big data, this is obviously not good news.

MasterCard users may soon be able to pay for online purchases with their face or finger, with the payments giant to begin experimenting with facial-scan technology as well as fingerprint identification in an attempt to eliminate digital fraud. According to a report by CNNMoney, MasterCard will launch a pilot program with 500 participants over the next few months to develop the infrastructure to approve purchases without the need to enter a password.

Spending on IT worldwide will drop by nearly 6 percent this year, Gartner reported, adding to the concerns of many IT leaders that the tech industry is not as healthy as many would otherwise believe. Research firm Gartner revised its annual IT spending forecast yesterday, stating that overall IT spending will decline 5.8 percent in 2015. Some organizations will benefit from lower prices on communications and IT services, but others will pay more for hardware this year.

Open source has become the new fast track to enterprise credibility both for incumbents and any vendor playing in the space. And that reality is going to reorder the vendor pecking order. This past week highlighted the momentum in enterprise open source technologies. Red Hat at its user conference outlined a series of announcements ranging from its container-based OpenShift platform to a mobile software deal with Samsung to security and analytics offerings.

When it comes to insider IT security threats, the third time is definitely not the charm. In fact, the typical organization now experiences 3.8 insider security incidents on an annual basis. That is the finding of a new report from SpectorSoft, which tracks security incidents and their impacts in the enterprise. According to the user activity monitoring company, nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of security professionals polled said insider incidents are up at their organizations.

Marketing executives are rubbing their hands in glee, and sometimes anguish, at the potential. Product development directors are dreaming up innovative applications. CEOs are envisioning how their business prospects will be transformed. We are, of course, talking about digital – the rise and proliferation of digital technologies which is disrupting companies out of existence and transforming entire industries. But what is digital and what’s really new about it? Who should drive it? Is there a need for a chief digital officer (CDO)?

Firms are blowing opportunities to engender their customers' lifelong loyalty. Here's an example from my own recent experience. As an analyst, I fly 100,000-plus miles with a preferred airline every year, and I'm a mobile mind-shifted consumer; therefore, I have made some assumptions that have led to an expectation. Here's a summary of how that turned out not to be the case and how my airline could have used systems of insight to handle a bad situation and secure my lifetime loyalty.

Internet companies make billions of dollars by capturing one of the world’s most precious commodities: your attention. They need to amuse, amaze, entice, and intrigue you—and millions of users like you—to stay afloat and profit. But figuring out what you want to read, watch, and see is harder than it looks.

IBM and Box have announced a global partnership designed to advance cloud solutions worldwide. The collaboration between Big Blue and the cloud storage service provider was unveiled on Tuesday. Both companies will contribute existing products and technologies in order to design "new, innovative solutions" targeted across a range of industries and professions including the enterprise, medical industry, mobility, cybersecurity and consumer services.

Mobile developers and publishers sent somewhere north of a trillion push notifications in 2014 alone. But with turn-off rates approaching 60 percent, developers are having to dig deeper to reach users who already have their apps. One solution that’s working for some? Deep engagement in every part of the app. Get users and you have a shot at engaging them. Engage them and you have a shot at monetizing them. Monetize them, and you might be the new king of the new hill.

Oracle's transition from cloud critic to cloud convert is complete. The company launched a raft of new services Monday that it claims will provide enterprises with all the tools they need to run their operations in the cloud. "We're now able to call our cloud services complete. With today's announcement, you can now move all your applications out of the data center and into the Oracle cloud," Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison said during an event at Oracle's headquarters.

The concept of deep learning or deep structured learning has been a frequent topic of conversation in recent months because of the commitment and advancements of some of the world’s largest and most prolific search companies. With organizations like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Baidu (a Chinese search engine) buying into this technology, we are starting to see a huge acceleration of the applications and uses for this relatively new artificial intelligence (AI).

Slack’s valuation soared to $2.8 billion in less than two years, and has doubled in the past six months alone — all without any big marketing campaigns. The startup’s adoption curve and rave reviews are something many founders and investors dream about, but few actually achieve. startups in general have been on a tear over the past few years as the “consumerization” trend continues to churn and the ascendance of Big Data continues to transform the way business gets done.

Enterprise spending on SaaS applications is approaching 30% of all application spending, and is currently growing at a 17.6% CAGR from 2013 to 2018. By 2018, 62% of all CRM software will be cloud-based, with Salesforce solidifying its market leadership position. These and other insights are from Byron Deeters’ State of the Cloud Report 2015 from Bessemer Venture Partners.

No doubt, the trend known as the Internet of Things carries with it lots of hype. According to an article at Baseline, IoT has the potential to change "everything," including IT. Citing some pretty staggering research statistics, the article noted that the number of connected devices worldwide is likely to reach 50 million over the next five years. Already, two out of every five organizations are leveraging IoT technologies or plan to do so this year.

By Dennis McCafferty Nearly six out of 10 survey respondents said their company is taking on a big data project, and an additional one out of five said they will start one soon. CEO: 32%, CIO: 25%, Line of business managers: 18% Silos: 21%, Lack of funding: 21%, No consensus on goals: 16%, Absence of executive support: 16% Data quality: 21%, Outdated infrastructure: 20%, Lack of internal tech expertise: 18%, Governance and security challenges: 17%, Data and legacy app silos: 12% 34% of survey respondents said their companies spend between $50,000 and $100,000 on big data efforts, and ...